[eng]Nanotechnology is a very promising discipline in the field of medicine, especially in oncology.
Nowadays, current cancer treatments are very harmful to the patients, mainly due to the low
specificity that these drugs present against the target cells and the high doses required. In the present
study we have tried to design a possible alternative to these drugs by applying nanotechnology.
The objectives of this study were to synthesize and characterize spherical gold nanoparticles
functionalized with Raltitrexed and evaluate their anticarcinogenic potential in vitro.
The nanoparticles were synthesized by a variation of Turkevich’s method and functionalized in two
steps – first with L-Cysteine and subsequently with Raltitrexed. The characterization of the
nanoparticles was performed using various analytical techniques: 1H-MNR, FT-IR, TEM, UV/Visible
spectroscopy, Zeta Potential, Hydrodinamic Diameter and CHNS Elemental Microanalisis. In vitro
evaluation of the antineoplastic potential of the nanoparticles was carried out on the cell line HCT-
116 (human colorectal carcinoma), comparing the results with the effects of the free drug.
The resulting nanoparticles had a mean diameter of 14.7 ± 0.4 nm and the yield of the
functionalization with Raltitrexed was 64%. Unfortunately, these functionalized nanoparticles didn’t
show any antineoplastic effects.